User blog:Brywarrior/BBO Season Four: Plagiarism?
Introduction For those of you who don't know, I have a series on this wiki titled "Bryce Bowman: Origins". It did alright popularity wise, and I got to do a hell of a lot of fun things while writing, as well as practice a bunch (which I needed...). It's fourth season was influenced by a popular web series called "Red vs. Blue". Note, I said "influenced". This will be important later. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to happen in this season, and RvB made it easy to tell that story. I thought this season went pretty well, from a production standpoint as well as being recieved by the public, so I commissioned my friend CaT to review it, as he does. And things were fine. I got a way better rating than anticipated (8.5/10, wtf?) and a lot of people liked it! It also seemed to have attracted people to the series, which was great! This is where it stops being great... A few months after the review came out, CaT was informed (whether with malicious intent or not) that BBO's fourth season had elements of another property interwoven through it. He got really angry, since he had praised the writing and characters of the season so heavily in his review, and it appeared that they were ripped from someone else's head. Understandably, he lowered the rating to a 4/10. Which, I didn't think was fair, so I kinda tried to start an argument to get the rating reinstated. This was not the right approach, and it didn't even accomplish the goal. So, now I'm here to clear things up and clear my conscious a little bit. Here we go. CaT... CaT did nothing wrong. I mean, I wasn't and still am not happy with the level of the rating drop, or the new title given to the season, but it's not really CaT's "fault." When I was told that CaT "found out" (it wasn't a secret...) and was planning on dropping the rating, I went to him to try and settle things, but I ended up making it worse for myself. I told him that 50% of the material was mine, and the other was stolen. This was wildly inaccurate and heavily misguided on my part. I was exaggerating, but it's difficult to really tell over text. Especially in a chat room without any kind of bold or italics. So, he naturally took it as the absolute number of how much my season was original or not. Again, I'm not saying CaT did anything wrong, it was a miscommunication on my part. I then tried to clear things up in my argument in the comments on the review itself, which didn't help, really, it just caused tension between CaT and I, and I only got back one point... CaT, I'm sorry about this. I'm sorry about everything, and we're good now, but I don't really feel like I deserve it. I put you in a bad position, and I'm sorry. What's Not Mine What I'd like to clear up now is everything that was taken deliberately and fully from RVB. Very little. I got the character's code names and their A.I. partners (for the most part) from the canon, but not their real names (Aside from Tex's first name and the Director's name) or their personalities, or their relationships with other characters. A very basic summary of the plot was taken, but it's really not that significant. Literally, just "the leader of a group makes an army of very few soldiers to help him bring back his dead fiance." That's it. That's all of it. This may seem like a lot, but if you've read BBO and watched RvB (specifically the 10th and 11th seasons), you can see how significantly different they are. What is Mine So, this part should be a little longer than the last. Hopefully, without too much rambling... The personalities are 98% my own. Tex wasn't a jerk (albeit, she was for an episode or two), the Freelancers weren't all sociopaths, and I didn't even attempt to fit in York's "deepness" that he's described having in the canon. Maine is very similar to his canon counterpart, but he wasn't evil. He was driven insane. The Meta/Sigma was similar, but very different in some aspects. Thirteen of the fifteen episodes were entirely my own. The Sarcophagus and the final episode were similar to canon episodes, but even so they weren't ripped directly. Anything involving an interaction or na event revolving around Bryce was my own. There isn't even a counterpart to him in the Canon. The number of people still alive at the end was new, as only Carolina and Wash survive in the canon. The Director's death was totally new. Tex's "big revea;" was totally new. Omega, Tex's A.I., had a completely different personality. Cortana isn't in RvB at all, so everything with her in it is super new. The armor abilities were updated quite heavily, though they were present in the canon. They were WAY more relevant in the canon, and only like two people had them in BBO, just sayin'. Also, I'm like 99% sure that the Counselor wasn't evil in the Canon, but it's been a while. Look, I don't really think there's anything I need to point out. The dialouge was all mine, the writing was all mine, the sub-plot of Bryce trying to save Marissa was all mine, Callie and Bryce' relationship. Wash and C.T.'s relationship was turned WAY up. I mean, the list goes on and on, and I really don't feel like typing all that out. Essentially, less than 10% of the season was unoriginal. And that's being generous, like, seriously. Closing My series is a fan-fiction series. It's not supposed to be all that original. I mean, the first three season are essentially a rip-off of OS-UAF, and I acknowledge that. I have also always heavily acknowlegded that the elements of RvB in season four aren't totally new, so it's not a secret or anything. I wasn't trying to get away with anything, I mean seriously. CaT seemed to be the only one who didn't know about the influence of RvB, and it made him angry when he found out. Understandably. I'm not trying to get anything changed, I just want everyone to know exactly what happened and why, as well as understanding how little of the material I wrote was stolen. I wouldn't even say stolen, I mean I talked about the source all the time, and I made huge changes to essentially everything. Regardless, the review stays as is, and CaT and I aren't at each other's throats, so everything's good. I'm not even sure I'm going to post this, I just feel like it needs to be said. Anyway, thank you for reading if you did, and I'd love a comment or two!!! "...Devil's create who will end them..." 01:57, July 11, 2016 (UTC) Category:Blog posts